Lot 6
1793 S-4 R3+ Chain AMERICA with Periods PCGS graded F15. Glossy chocolate brown and steel. The surfaces are smooth, void of any trace of corrosion or verdigris. Just a few light contact marks including a fine pin scratch in the field right of the date and very tiny rim bruises at UN in UNITED and ES in STATES. EDS, Breen state I, with only a slight bulge between the rim and lower hair and no trace of a die crack in that area. The date and legends are complete and clear and the Periods following the date and LIBERTY are bold. A very nice mid-grade example of this popular "Redbook" variety. And this is the rarest die state for the variety; most show die cracks off the lowest curl. The S-4 was the last collectable variety of Chain Cent to be discovered. It was unknown to Dr. Shurtleff when he wrote "About Cents" in the March 1, 1859 edition of the Boston Evening Transcript. The first auction appearance of the variety appears to be lot 1019 of W. Elliot Woodward's 5th sale in April 1863 where it was described as "Period after Liberty and date. This variety is extremely rare." When Sylvester Crosby wrote the die variety descriptions for The United States Cents of 1793 in the April 1869 issue of the American Journal of Numismatics he just followed Shurtleff's emission sequence and placed this variety after the S-3 (as did every other chronicler of 1793 cents from Ebenezer Locke Mason, Jr. in 1858 to Walter Breen in 2000). However, more current analysis by Jim Neiswinter suggests this variety was struck before the S-3. Only the latest die state of the S-4 reverse shows the bulge that connects the bottoms of the letters in UNIT, and this bulge is more developed on the reverse of S-3. Our grade is F12. The attribution and Neiswinter provenance are noted on the PCGS label. Weight 200.3 grains. PCGS population 1; 8 finer for the variety. Estimate Value $17,500 - UP
Ex Don Valenziano 4/1996-Jim Neiswinter Collection.
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| Realized $18,000 |
